


Cold enough to build fires

by adrenalin211



Category: 24
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:49:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrenalin211/pseuds/adrenalin211
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were, in a very literal sense, living off the land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold enough to build fires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leigh57](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leigh57/gifts).



> This is for you, leigh57. The Dec 5th prompt was _You see all my light, and you love my dark,_ and this is what I came up with.
> 
> Hey, S. ILU and I hope you'll forgive me for totally stealing your Post-[What If You Catch Me, Where Would We Land](http://leigh57.livejournal.com/146745.html#cutid1) AU. I even took the detail about Jack's woodworking abilities.(Dirty minds to the left. Oh wait! Both apply in this very fic!) Thanks to sparkles_mouse for the last minute beta!

There was a small cabin in the middle of a forest. They’d seen it advertised in the local paper, random luck amidst an onslaught of jaw-tightening misfortune that had led them, fleeing fast enough to blur shadows, to this tiny lakeside town. Rent was only $850 a month, cash, so as long as they could pay for their own utilities, they could make it work and manage to live here, in the middle of nothing much, under the radar.

Renee’d loved it the second they stepped inside, the kind of love that made his stomach ache at the thought of inevitably leaving. He’d tried not to look at her that day as she’d absorbed the sight: walls made of huge, reshaped tree trunks and lamplight casting a cozy interior glow. He couldn’t help himself from watching her. A warm smile had stretched across her face, her glisteny eyes beaming at him from across the room.

(”Did you know it was once my dream to live in a log cabin?” she’d whispered to him later.)

They settled down here, as much as they could settle down anywhere.

Money was tricky. He’d stashed huge sums of it into accounts bearing various aliases, but it was a risk. Every time he accessed an offshore passbook he did so with the realization that the action could minimize the potential duration of their stay. Careful as he’d been when he’d dispersed all his funds, he didn’t have to watch overly simplistic cop dramas to know that when financial transactions occurred, there was always a trail somewhere.

Watching her fall in love with this house made him want to buy it, or never have to leave, at least. So, against his better judgment, he busted his ass to run a wood-working business and keep up with the rent that way. She had a small garden and learned how to plant potatoes and squash from a local farmer.

They were, in a very literal sense, living off the land.

He liked to work with his hands, to craft things. He’d developed a reputation; an occasional townsman would wander through, toting with him some wood, the cash he could afford to give up, and a request for a new kitchen chair, or a child’s dresser. That was how it had started. Word spread and his business grew, though he was careful to keep it local. He had back-orders that would enable them to stay here for at least another six months, should it remain safe to do so.

After the first frost, they started an unspoken ritual in the evenings. Once they were done with dinner he’d go out back to chop some wood. He’d stash the good pieces in his workroom and put the rest in their small fireplace. She’d always read her book, or the paper, until the soft orange glow awakened the den with luminous heat. Then, she’d move towards him and sit on the oval rug by the fire, leaning against his frame, her cheek resting on his thermal-covered shoulder as he wrapped his arm around her, tight.

“Tell me what you made today,” she sometimes said, wondering aloud. Some other times he’d sit there, a finger twined around a strand of her auburn hair, and ask her if she was warm enough.

They would fall quiet after a while, nestled in their living room and, on the good days, when he managed to stomp out the thoughts of impending danger, or Kim and his granddaughter, or eventual relocation, the sensation that would wash over him could only be described as...at peace.

With her.

And with himself.

++++++++++++++++++++

No one in town was that surprised when a mid-December blizzard knocked out the power for almost two weeks.

At first, they made an adventure out of it.

(“It’s a flavor for nineteenth century living,” she’d said to him, day two.)

She boiled water in pots every night, using up the last of the propane in the grill’s tank.

Soon they’d have to resort to fire, to uncontrollable heat. He imagined delicate, burnt fingertips extracting pots from an open flame and tried to erase the thought from his consciousness.

She’d empty the steaming pots into the tub, balancing out the temperature with the running, freezing water. Then, she’d light some candles so they could take a bath.

Together.

It was his favorite part of this whole damn thing.

“This is a great excuse to do sexy things like this,” she said, her feet resting on his thighs as she faced him in the tub. Her toes curled against him before they took a teasing trail higher up his leg until...

...She formed an oval around him by connecting the arches of her feet. Her raised eyebrow suggested a kind of mischief he so rarely got to see; she started to move against him.

He shut his eyes and let her, for just a minute. Before long he couldn’t seem to focus on anything else. “Renee,” he whispered. He wondered if he said her name out loud.

“You like that?” Her voice was crackly and somehow smooth.

“Yes,” he whispered, raising the corner of his mouth as he opened his eyes. “But you definitely don’t need an excuse. To do…this.”

“To take baths with you?” She smirked, picking up her pace just a little and Christ, he had to stop her before…

Jack laughed, the sound low and husky. He bit down on his lip and tried to refocus. “Well. That, too.”

Stilling her feet with his hands, he inched back a bit and took a deep breath.

“So noted,” she said, amused. He watched her taking it all in. Just how much he was... enjoying that.

(Swish of the sudsy water, slow touch of her toe, climbing higher up.)

Once he regained some composure, he slid a bar of soap up her arm, leaning closer in.

“You can…do that whenever,” he reiterated, just in case that wasn't clear. He pushed himself against her knee as his mouth sought hers.

“Okay,” she managed, flicker of candle light casting shadows across the skin of her freckled cheeks.

“Really,” he said into her open mouth.

The water lapped around them, some splashing out of the tub.

“Come to bed,” she said, moments or minutes later. He was enchanted by her slippery skin and the way she smelled like Dove. He kissed that spot right below her ear, running warm water up her arms to rinse her off.

It was cold in the bathroom when he stepped out of the tub, but he was too distracted to be bothered.

By her.

By the towel she was moving up and down his back, rigorous. She was bouncing around to stay warm, her lips barely leaving his.

She could multitask.

He, on the other hand, found that she’d captured every last ounce of focus in him.

He warmed up while inside of her (swift, familiar rush), got dressed quickly after, and held her close under layers of heavy blankets, exhaling against her neck.

“I love you,” she whispered, her breaths still staggering, her teeth starting to chatter.

He kissed her nape and her still-damp hair, squeezing her tighter in hopes to absorb all of her cold.

++++++++++++++++++++

It was nearing Christmas and the electricity still hadn’t come back.

(They kept saying ‘tomorrow’, but they’d been saying ‘tomorrow’ for five yesterdays.)

“We need to get a tree,” he said one morning. Statement of fact. “There’s a patch of conifers about a half-mile away. We could walk there,” he suggested. “Drag it back.”

The thought sounded unpleasantly cold, but Renee smiled at the idea, which told him he was right about that. That she’d wanted a tree.

“You need new boots,” she said. “Aren’t your feet going to freeze?”

“Snow’s not too deep anymore,” he said. “I think I’ll be fine.”

(His toes were numb by the time they’d gotten home. She must have figured this by the way he was walking, because she insisted they leave the tree in front of the porch as she rushed in to start some hot water. He soaked his feet in the basin she prepared and she never said I told you so.)

Renee came over to check on him twenty minutes later, pulling her sweater tight around her torso as she moved through the living room. Her lips were chapped and red and he offered her the Chapstick out from his jean-pocket.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Thank you.” He felt her hands start to rub out the knot in his shoulder, the one he hadn’t even mentioned.

When the feeling had returned and he put on some socks and shoes to trap in the warmth, he ventured up into the owner’s attic and, thanks to a trusty flashlight that was due for new batteries, found a tree-stand and a box of someone’s ornaments laying to the right of it.

“Hey Renee?” he called her.

“You okay?”

“Yeah! I hit the jackpot of Christmas décor. Can you c’mere so I can hand you this box?”

She shined her light up. “How big is it?” she asked. "Do you think it will fit through?"

He dragged the box to the opening in the ceiling and looked down at her, wanting more than anything to see a smile grace her features.

“Where have I heard that before?” he asked, deadpan.

(He’d never tire of that laugh. The curve of her mouth. The way she could somehow make her eyes look delighted.)

++++++++++++++++++++

That evening, through the glow of candles and the snap of fire ashes, they decorated the spruce, imagining aloud the stories behind each decoration.

“What do you think this one was about?” she asked. It was a pinecone with a cinnamon stick oddly attached with red ribbon.

“Homemade?” He shrugged.

He watched as Renee dug some string-lights out of the box and pondered them for a minute, holding them in her hand. Then she started to weave them between the branches.

This was one of those times he realized she could, without warning, steal his breath.

(Two days until Christmas, no electricity.)

Ninety-nine percent of her was a realist, through and through, but that one sliver of optimism could catch him by surprise and sweep him senselessly into a smile.

Later, he'd hunt down some dental floss and tie it to the wooden horse he plans to carve, their very first ornament.

Their own story.

And as he reshapes the wood, he’ll think about how, being in the dark cold with her, as it turns out, is better than any electrically-warmed and well-lit evening in her absence.


End file.
